Nested Virtualization is not a new idea. In fact, we announced our first preview of Nested Virtualization running on Windows way back in 2015. From that Windows Insider preview to now, Nested...
Updated Jun 13, 2020
Version 2.0
Blog Post
Finally got around to testing if the latest build of Windows 11 available on the beta channel will actually do nested VMs. Doesn't look good.
My PC main host is a windows 10 running fully updated 21H1. It uses a Ryzen 3900X. Since i cannot afford to deal with windows 11 as my main host, the only way i could test if Windows 11 would support nested in Hyper-V would be to install VMWare 16 and install Windows 11 to that.
After i got windows 11 installed in the VMware environment, i verified that the Config Version for Hyper-V was 10. And it was. According to the link here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualization/hyper-v-on-windows/user-guide/nested-virtualization this says that you need windows 11 and config version 10.0. Since VMware Workstation 16 was set up to virtualize the CPU Virtualization, I was actually able to install the Hyper-V software in the Windows 11 guest. If Workstation didn't allow it, then it would not have been able to install and would report the hardward won't support virtualization.
Anyways, I set up a Hyper-V VM using config 10 (default) in the Windows 11 guest and installed Windows 10 Pro as the guest to Windows 11. Yippir... almost there.
After windows 10 was installed, i went to enable Hyper-V... and... BOOM... Hyper-V platform cannot be enabled. Well crap... Then I remembered that I have to enable the ProcessorVirtuilzationExtensions in the host so i went back the Windows 11 host and enabled them... Tried to run the windows 10 guest from windows 11 and BAM... get an error that nested virtualization is not supported.
I am scratching my head here... the only thing I can think about maybe possibly is that VMWare Workstation when it is virtualizing the processor's virtuilization tech and sending it to Windows 11, the guests of that does not get access to it as if it was actually an AMD Ryzen even though the CPU shows in all guests as and AMD 3900X.
Anyways, here is to hoping that maybe, possibly, the docs on Microsofts Website are correct and nested VMS will actually be allowed with windows 11 running the Hyper-V config 10.0 like it says on their site.
I don't know of anyone personally that is running windows 11 22000.194 as their main OS and doing nested VMs... if anyone here is reading this and is doing and it is good, please let me know. I am hoping that just doing part in VMWare and the rest in Hyper-V is what is causing the issue.
The pic below is just showing that had Windows 11 22000.194 running in Workstation 16. That then had hyper-v installed with windows 10 installed as it's guest. The error message is what i got when trying to run the windows 10 after enabling nested VMs in the Windows 11 guest... The fact that i was even able to get Hyper-V installed in Windows 11 shows that at least some CPU virtualization was passed from my Windows 10 host through VMWare to Windows 11 but it may not be a compatible type for Hyper-V to pass to a guest. I dunno.
VMWare Workstation running Windows 11 guest. Windows 11 guest running Hyper-V with windows 10 Guest. Windows 10 guest not able to detect virtulization parts of the CPU.